Is it worth it to create an ele/get into the class in its current state, especially post-patch?

[Dusty Pink Boa.3285]

What is says on the tin.

Nowadays, it seems that most long-term ele players out there are vets who continue to play the class out of some sense of loyalty to it and/or sheer spite and determination.

I never was an elementalist main myself, and my only ele character lasted a few months before being deleted.  I leveled him manually and, to be honest, it was the most fun I had leveling any of my characters. But once I reached lvl80, I found myself not enjoying the class *precisely* because of how weak it felt no matter what builds I tried; if I went berserker/viper I'd get clapped, if I went marauder I would hit even less than a wet noodle and then get clapped anyway. It felt especially bad when I would log back into any of my other characters and survive just fine in glass gear while doing good dps. I still love the ele class fantasy and the feel of it, but at that point it felt like my ele was just taking up a char slot for no good reason.

Lately, I've decided to invest in a set of ascended trailblazer trinkets. Have a spare char slot too. It made me consider creating an ele again. I now have a guardian and a necro I do most instanced content with, so maybe creating a character just for some casual fun won't be too bad. I heard good things about ele trailblazer builds, but most of it is from a year or two ago. Can trailblazer weaver/tempest still perform well in open-world metas and solo? Seeing numbers rise in arc and feeling like I'm pulling my weight is one aspect of my fun in this game, so I would love to have a simplified rotation that is up to date, if there's any!

Thanks in advance.

 

Edited July 17, 2022 by ShrimpSoup.7203

[TheDarkness.6947]

If you had fun with it while leveling, I think you can have fun in open world end game content, and you can definitely build to have plenty of sustain.  My perspective is someone who has been playing less than 2 years, so not a long-time nostalgia player.

 

For me what made ele come to life is celestial gear, for the simple reason that it makes all of the skills feel impactful and worth using.  If watching ARCDPS and trying to max out damage is what excites you, a more focused gear set like TB might be a better choice for you.  For me cele gear maximized fun.  I’m ok with the idea that pulling my weight can be about more than just DPS - like CC, healing, cleansing, sharing boons, etc. even though some of that isn’t as easily measurable as DPS.

[Infinity.2876]

I like ele because your damage and sustain is always the same no matter the build, so you can experiment

Edited July 17, 2022 by Infinity.2876

[soulknight.9620]

2 hours ago, ShrimpSoup.7203 said:

Can trailblazer weaver/tempest still perform well in open-world metas and solo?

In open world trailblazers weaver is very good (metas and solo). Same goes for cele weaver. But dont get your hopes up for end game instanced content with that stat build. 

[Fueki.4753]

If you have fun with Elementalists, it's worth making one.

Just don't expect average or better performance.

[AliamRationem.5172]

7 hours ago, ShrimpSoup.7203 said:

What is says on the tin.

Nowadays, it seems that most long-term ele players out there are vets who continue to play the class out of some sense of loyalty to it and/or sheer spite and determination.

I never was an elementalist main myself, and my only ele character lasted a few months before being deleted.  I leveled him manually and, to be honest, it was the most fun I had leveling any of my characters. But once I reached lvl80, I found myself not enjoying the class *precisely* because of how weak it felt no matter what builds I tried; if I went berserker/viper I'd get clapped, if I went marauder I would hit even less than a wet noodle and then get clapped anyway. It felt especially bad when I would log back into any of my other characters and survive just fine in glass gear while doing good dps. I still love the ele class fantasy and the feel of it, but at that point it felt like my ele was just taking up a char slot for no good reason.

Lately, I've decided to invest in a set of ascended trailblazer trinkets. Have a spare char slot too. It made me consider creating an ele again. I now have a guardian and a necro I do most instanced content with, so maybe creating a character just for some casual fun won't be too bad. I heard good things about ele trailblazer builds, but most of it is from a year or two ago. Can trailblazer weaver/tempest still perform well in open-world metas and solo? Seeing numbers rise in arc and feeling like I'm pulling my weight is one aspect of my fun in this game, so I would love to have a simplified rotation that is up to date, if there's any!

Thanks in advance.

 

I'm not going to tell you it's the easy way to go, but if you enjoy the spec condi weaver is easily among the best solo play builds available.  It's also perfectly viable in a DPS role for strikes, fractals, and raids.

Here's a recent video clip of the Trailblazer fire/earth build.  

Here's one getting crazy with the available open world masteries using Viper stats.  This is almost identical to the raid/fractal meta build.

Here's the celestial fire/arcane variant.  It's lower damage than the other two, but it's still quite strong and really a lot of fun to play!

And just to show that the foundation is sound, here's a Balthazar solo on condi weaver using all green gear with nothing worth over 10 silver.  This is using the fire/arcane build like the celestial variant but with Balthazar rune to compensate for the lack of expertise on green rabid/dire gear.

As Discretize.eu notes in their build guide for condition weaver, "This build is naturally tanky due to its rotation, having easy access to skills that provide evasion frames."  I find this to be accurate in group play because you generally only need to buy a second or two to give your healer time to top you off from any mistakes.  With condi weaver that's easy to do thanks to skills like earthen vortex, obsidian flesh, and riptide paired with your standard dodges.

 

Edited July 17, 2022 by AliamRationem.5172

[chronometria.3708]

My elementalist was my first character...and i only keep it around for the crafting and the birthdays.

[voodoo.7412]

Full cele tempest with dagger warhorn( Fire ,earth ,tempest )with balthazar runes and condi food (burn ,bleed) you can roll anything metas ,solo champs ,Fract , and general  OW ,story.

 

Also the cele with balthazar runes work great on condi weaver sword dagger with( Fire ,Arcane ,weaver)

 

[Dadnir.5038]

It's always worth having some amount of experience playing every professions. It allow you to gain your own perspective on the strong points and weak points of a profession.

So yeah, there is some worth in creating an elementalist.

[the krytan assassin.9235]

On 7/17/2022 at 12:59 PM, ShrimpSoup.7203 said:

But once I reached lvl80, I found myself not enjoying the class *precisely* because of how weak it felt no matter what builds I tried

it still feels very fragile compared to other classes when choosing a full dmge spec on ele. Being lightweight & low healthpool are inherent to this. The dps of Pdps, Cdps weaver and Pdps cata are somewhat decent incase all boons are provided by your party members (since you basically have nothing usefull). Also don't expect to pull anything close to the SC benchmarks. You'll have to be prepared to frequently lose dps duels to classes using low effort builds while you're playing the piano like rachmaninoff. 

Besides that, unless you specifically adjust your armor/weaponsets for open world you'll probably end up getting frustrated by your profession *not working*. For example Weaver is unable to give himself a decent amount of might and catalyst isn't able to maintain 10 stacks of elemental empowerment without perma quick& alac which results in a ~15% dmge loss. 

 

 

On 7/17/2022 at 12:59 PM, ShrimpSoup.7203 said:

Seeing numbers rise in arc and feeling like I'm pulling my weight is one aspect of my fun in this game, so I would love to have a simplified rotation that is up to date, if there's any!

like mentioned earlier, the dps is average at best and offers almost no group support. You'll probably feel like you're somewhat pulling your weight by the effort you can put in getting the correct rotation, but as soon as you realize you are not providing any boon/heal/barrier support or look at your Arc that feeling is gone.  

The Dps specs ranging from easy to hard are probably Pdps Weaver->Cdps Weaver->Pdps Cata with Pdps cata being especially hard to master. 

 

Since almost anything goes for open world content, your ele should be able to handle himself just fine. For instanced content you'll have to accept you're often gonna slack behind the rest and will get kicked out of higher end content from time to time. I personally love the feeling and playstyle of the ele, but it's been the victim of 10 years of abuse and assault by the devs grabbing every opportunity to nerf it to the ground when he finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel. 

 

Especially after mentioning you're maining 2 of the favourite classes of the developers i feel like you're gonna have a hard time enjoying ele. Do whatever you want, but i'd recommend picking another class atm 

[Labjax.2465]

I started using this celestial ele tempest build by WoodenPotatoes since I came back to the game and it quickly became my main. Great for solo open world use.

Only thing is, it's def not low intensity. I don't know what your preference is on that, but just thought I would warn anyone who reads this. I mean, you can play it fairly low key by just sitting in fire a lot, but if you want to get the most out of it, you're going to be switching elements a lot.

Over time, I tweaked it for my own use a tiny bit. 1) I was frustrated with overloads getting interrupted so I did Harmonius Conduit instead of Invigorating Torrents and found the extra damage against CC spamming enemies was usually worth the loss in regen and vigor from auras. 2) with the new alacrity change, I've been experimenting with Lucid Singularity instead of Elemental Bastion. Both those tweaks are a bit of a loss in sustain, I'm pretty sure, so maybe something to fiddle with later after you are used to the spec.

Anyway, that is my recommend.

 

[insistent.8369]

6 minutes ago, Labjax.2465 said:

I started using this celestial ele tempest build by WoodenPotatoes since I came back to the game and it quickly became my main. Great for solo open world use.

Only thing is, it's def not low intensity. I don't know what your preference is on that, but just thought I would warn anyone who reads this. I mean, you can play it fairly low key by just sitting in fire a lot, but if you want to get the most out of it, you're going to be switching elements a lot.

Over time, I tweaked it for my own use a tiny bit. 1) I was frustrated with overloads getting interrupted so I did Harmonius Conduit instead of Invigorating Torrents and found the extra damage against CC spamming enemies was usually worth the loss in regen and vigor from auras. 2) with the new alacrity change, I've been experimenting with Lucid Singularity instead of Elemental Bastion. Both those tweaks are a bit of a loss in sustain, I'm pretty sure, so maybe something to fiddle with later after you are used to the spec.

Anyway, that is my recommend.

 

Catalyst, tempest and weaver can all be built for great open world solo though, i run celestial catalyst personally.

[Sahne.6950]

Tempest is pretty nice atm. WvW/PvP atleast.

[Infinity.2876]

23 hours ago, the krytan assassin.9235 said:

 For example Weaver is unable to give himself a decent amount of might

 

If you use the arcane trait line and pyromancers' puissance you get a decent amount of might.

 

However I can understand the gist of what you where saying and I wholy agree that the sustain and even damage pale in comparison to that easily gained by the eod specs.

 

Also as a whole I just feel better if I have 30 skills at my finger tips.

 

I've played elementalist the most out of all of my characters so I feel comfortable playing it even though I take longer to kill enemies and don't obtain very many top stats on spvp.

 

If your curious this is my Build

It has an ok amount of sustain augmented by not using sword.

It is a little low on condi cleanse but outputs a good amount of damage with both conditions and might and gives you a lot of vigor which helps you stay alive.

I would not recommend it for people who aren't ready to swap attunement alot.

 

[AliamRationem.5172]

4 hours ago, Infinity.2876 said:

If you use the arcane trait line and pyromancers' puissance you get a decent amount of might.

 

However I can understand the gist of what you where saying and I wholy agree that the sustain and even damage pale in comparison to that easily gained by the eod specs.

 

Also as a whole I just feel better if I have 30 skills at my finger tips.

 

I've played elementalist the most out of all of my characters so I feel comfortable playing it even though I take longer to kill enemies and don't obtain very many top stats on spvp.

 

If your curious this is my Build

It has an ok amount of sustain augmented by not using sword.

It is a little low on condi cleanse but outputs a good amount of damage with both conditions and might and gives you a lot of vigor which helps you stay alive.

I would not recommend it for people who aren't ready to swap attunement alot.

 

A little confused about the part where you say you "augment" your sustain by not using sword.  Sword/focus is a much stronger defensive kit than scepter/dagger and should produce better damage with this build as well.

[DEL.9468]

On 7/17/2022 at 2:53 PM, TheDarkness.6947 said:

If you had fun with it while leveling, I think you can have fun in open world end game content, and you can definitely build to have plenty of sustain.  My perspective is someone who has been playing less than 2 years, so not a long-time nostalgia player.

 

For me what made ele come to life is celestial gear, for the simple reason that it makes all of the skills feel impactful and worth using.  If watching ARCDPS and trying to max out damage is what excites you, a more focused gear set like TB might be a better choice for you.  For me cele gear maximized fun.  I’m ok with the idea that pulling my weight can be about more than just DPS - like CC, healing, cleansing, sharing boons, etc. even though some of that isn’t as easily measurable as DPS.

This is the secret to enjoying this class.

You can do T4 fractals with Cele gear pretending to be cDPS weaver/quickness catalyst or alac/heal Tempest pretty confidently with this. That extends to pretty much any content that does not require you to minmax tryhard.

Most of all I'd focus on if you enjoy the frantic piano gameplay. You can't be pushing "good" numbers without actually mechanically grasping the class well enough.

Edited July 19, 2022 by LexIcon.2819

[akipappi.3917]

i switched to necro with same stats and i got like double health + shroud which also gives damage resist, has bigger dmg numbers and i get all the good boons by existing. maybe i just like necro more but the overall gameplay feels more interesting too, biggest bonus is getting actual utilities in xpacs instead of stances in pof and stances with cast time in eod

[Asek.1869]

So I love playing ele he is my main but at the current state of game I feel like you are punished by picking him for anythink be it fractals/strikes or raids, dont know about you guys but I want to know what you think about it, do you feel the same?

Edited July 20, 2022 by Asek.1869

[Infinity.2876]

19 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

A little confused about the part where you say you "augment" your sustain by not using sword.  Sword/focus is a much stronger defensive kit than scepter/dagger and should produce better damage with this build as well.

It's helpful because you can attack people who run away and snipe you (ae: power soulbeast, deadeyes, and so on)

 

I also like some of the dual attacks better animation and theme wise

Edited July 20, 2022 by Infinity.2876

[AliamRationem.5172]

6 hours ago, Asek.1869 said:

So I love playing ele he is my main but at the current state of game I feel like you are punished by picking him for anythink be it fractals/strikes or raids, dont know about you guys but I want to know what you think about it, do you feel the same?

We don't really need to guess on this one.  We know the potential for these builds.  If you can perform close to optimal, weaver and catalyst are competitive for melee DPS.  

The problem is that performing at this level is significantly more difficult than it is for other classes not just due to the rotation itself but its sensitivity to interruptions caused by normal gameplay mechanics.  These are much less of a factor to a lot of the new ranged DPS specs which have "just push buttons" rotations with no AA chains and no positioning requirements.  It's not just about ease of play but the fact that even at 100% optimal the mechanics of the game cause DPS loss to complex melee builds that is not compensated in any way by higher potential DPS.

This is why classes like weaver and catalyst are close to the bottom of class representation.  Even with perfect execution you can't perform optimally on these specs outside of encounters that allow strict rotations.  So, what you see is that a well-played weaver or catalyst can keep up with your average overtuned EoD ranged spec...as long as the mechanics of the encounter allow it.  Beyond that you really just have to outclass these specs to keep up with them.

Balanced?  Not even a little bit.  But their new design vision seems to encourage more of that, unfortunately.  Unless something changes and they allow selfish melee DPS specs with touchy rotations like weaver to be the top potential DPS like they should be, we're likely to continue seeing elementalist at the bottom of the barrel.

[AliamRationem.5172]

13 minutes ago, Infinity.2876 said:

It's helpful because you can attack people who run away and snipe you (ae: power soulbeast, deadeyes, and so on)

 

I also like some of the dual attacks better animation and theme wise

Oh for PvP?  Okay, sorry, I thought we were talking PvE.

[Infinity.2876]

On 7/20/2022 at 9:43 AM, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Oh for PvP?  Okay, sorry, I thought we were talking PvE.

Well even more so for pve as a lot of enemies are either melee or drop deadly aoe on themselves

 

I know that you can solo avatar of Balthazar with sword but if you go ranged you can stand next to the bouncing mushroom so when he does the flame everywhere attack you can escape

Edited July 21, 2022 by Infinity.2876

[AliamRationem.5172]

1 hour ago, Infinity.2876 said:

Well even more so for pve as a lot of enemies are either melee or drop deadly aoe on themselves

 

I know that you can solo Herald of Balthazar with sword but if you go ranged you can stand next to the bouncing mushroom so when he does the flame everywhere attack you can escape

Just a tip on Avatar of Balthazar (the Herald of Balthazar is actually the first story boss in PoF).  You can prevent him from burning the room if he is stunned as his health crosses the 50% threshold or by waiting for him to perform the sword raise animation and then stunning him.  

Stunning him after he raises the sword is preferred as he doesn't attack while performing this animation, buying you a few seconds of free time.  You can see an example of this here.   I kill one of his dogs at 8 seconds into the fight, forcing him into a 5 second animation during which he doesn't attack.  During this time his health crosses the 50% threshold, so when he comes out of the first animation at 13 seconds he goes straight into the sword raise.  3 seconds later I break his bar, stunning him for 5 more seconds.

In total, the boss spends 13 seconds out of a 23 second fight stunned or in animation lock!  He also doesn't burn the room.

[the krytan assassin.9235]

6 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Even with perfect execution you can't perform optimally on these specs outside of encounters that allow strict rotations

Exactly this. The argument you hear all the time "Just get gud" doesn't apply to this. Weaver rotations are still pretty viable as long as you are able to Stay close combat (although the mandatory CC's totally kitten up your rotation. Catalyst is however a totally different story. The second you drop out of your rotation for whatever reason the dps drop is massive (F.E. a lack of 10 stacks of elemental empowerment & lack of Fire orb & a couple seconds of suboptimal dmge when you need to reset your cd's while in earth AA'ing).

 

Cata can usually stick to his rotation in a couple raids & strikes but the moment there are actual mechanics your fcked.

[Silverpoopoo.1476]

Not really.

Playing ele largely feels like work, compared to playing other classes which feels like fun.

Edited July 21, 2022 by Silverpoopoo.1476